Criminal underworld in total chaos after collapse of €1bn crime empire
Gangland figure Fat Freddie thought to be in hiding after 'ratting out' kingpin Kinahan
By JIM CUSACK in Dublin and GERARD COUZENS in ESTEPONA
Sunday May 30 2010
Dublin's criminal underworld was in disarray yesterday with leading gangsters reported to have fled the city as kingpin Christy Kinahan and other members of his gang -- including his right-hand man John Cunningham -- began appearing in court in Spain.
Kinahan, his sons Daniel and Christy junior and an unnamed woman appeared at a closed hearing in court in Estepona yesterday and were remanded to prison. Kinahan's close associate Cunningham and another Dublin man were remanded in custody after they appeared before the same court on Friday.
Spanish police mounted a major security operation around the court yesterday morning just after 9am. The three were questioned individually by Judge Maria Carmen Gutierrez Henares who then committed them to prison to await trial. They were led off in handcuffs by heavily armed police.
The woman suspect called to court yesterday morning was identified only as a secretary who worked for the Kinahans. A source at the court said all those suspects who had not been released or bailed over the past three days would be called back to court later and that state prosecutors would ask the judge to send them to a local prison while the investigation is carried out.
Suspects can be held for two years without formal charges being laid, or up to four years for the most serious offences. The same judge ordered the release on bail of six other men on Friday.
A total of 22 were arrested in raids on the Costa del Sol last Tuesday morning in one of the largest joint police operations ever undertaken in Europe.
The Kinahans and Cunningham have officially been declared formal suspects by Judge Gutierrez Henares.
Gardai are confident it is the biggest single blow to organised crime in Ireland since the break-up of John Gilligan's gang in the aftermath of the murder of Veronica Guerin in 1996.
Cunningham, a long-time associate of Gilligan, had been looking after Gilligan's interests in Spain. Gardai are confident those assets are among the assets seized by the Spanish police.
Notorious gangland figure "Fat" Freddie Thompson and a close associate disappeared from Dublin last Monday, less than 24 hours before the huge police operation swung into action in Spain, Belgium, Holland, Britain and Ireland. News of his disappearance caused a flurry of anxiety among the other main drugs gangs in the city who distributed drugs supplied by Kinahan's operation.
Intelligence reports reaching gardai in the city indicate that Thompson is suspected of being a "rat", the underworld expression for informant.
It is known that Kinahan humiliated Thompson and his associate during a visit to his villa outside Marbella earlier this year, making him carry out menial tasks in front of other senior criminals.
Gardai and gangsters were also searching for one of Kinahan's money launderers in Dublin who also disappeared last week around the time of the international operation took place.
This 29-year-old, who also runs a ticket tout business, is apparently suspected of having also "ratted".
It has also emerged that supplies of heroin in Dublin had dried up by Friday.
Gangs supplied by Kinahan had virtually wiped out rival drug networks over the past two years during the worst spate of gangland murders in the history of the State. This led to an almost total reliance on Kinahan's network, according to gardai.
It also emerged last week that the massive Operation Shovel, which by week's end had led to the seizure of properties in three continents with an estimated overall value approaching €1bn, began with an investigation into links between Kinahan and various gangs including that of Freddie Thompson two years ago. A report from garda detectives based in the B Division in south inner Dublin was passed up through the force's national units to the European police agency Europol and the Spanish and other EU police forces.
They had began gathering the information on Kinahan's network after a seizure of heroin worth €13m in an apartment in Clondalkin in late 2008.
The Spanish and other police forces carried out a prolonged surveillance operation in close liaison with the Garda's National Drugs Unit. Information from wire taps and other surveillance from this operation was placed before Judge Gutierrez Henares who questioned Kinahan and his sons and Cunningham over Friday and yesterday before detaining them in custody.
Kinahan and his sons were taken to the Alhaurin de la Torre Prison near Malaga yesterday afternoon.
Kinahan, who served terms of imprisonment for drugs possession and fraud in the 1990s, is by far the wealthiest Irish criminal.
The Spanish police valued holiday complexes and residential property he bought in Brazil at €500m.
This is part of an international portfolio across Europe and in the Middle East, they said.
Yet he abandoned his first wife Jean, who still lives in the small flat in the Oliver Bond complex in south inner Dublin where she raised their two sons, Christy junior and Daniel. Jean worked as a cleaner to pay for their upkeep while her husband was in prison. Since leaving Ireland in 2002 Kinahan struck up new relationships and has families with two women living in Holland and Belgium.
In Dublin yesterday gardai said that the distributors of Kinahan's drugs are extremely paranoid and they fear further violence will erupt as the existing criminal order breaks down and new suppliers emerge.
- JIM CUSACK in Dublin and GERARD COUZENS in ESTEPONA
Sunday Independent
Sunday 30 May 2010
The 'Dapper Don' at the head of a €1bn drug empire
Sunday Tribune
Mick McCaffrey
The undisputed godfather of Irish international organised crime, 53-year-old Christy Kinahan has come a long way from the flats on Oliver Bond Street in Dublin's south-inner city.
A former heroin addict who received his first criminal conviction in 1979, he has served several lengthy stints behind bars for offences such as possession of heroin and stolen cheques.
He realised that after being in jail for 11 of 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s that he needed a career change and decided to use his time in Portlaoise prison to educate himself. He became fluent in several European languages and even turned down a chance of early release to complete a degree in sociology. He was released from prison in 1997 and moved to Marbella, where he gradually began to cultivate contacts in the international drugs game.
He always fancied himself as a bit of a gentleman and shed his working-class accent for a more cultured European one complete with expensive suits made by top tailors. He is often seen wearing white silk suits and a panama hat, which has earned him the nickname the 'Dapper Don' in the Irish underworld.
His sense of style obviously went down well with the drugs cartels – he became one of the Colombian cartel's biggest customers and also does tens of millions of euro worth of drugs trade with the Russian mob. He is a true international player and supplies drugs to the UK, Portugal, Belgium and other European countries.
Most of the drugs that end up on the streets of Dublin have been sourced through Kinahan or his contacts. The drugs business has been good to him and it is estimated that he has built up a personal fortune of over €150m. His Spanish assets were last week frozen by a judge. He lives in a luxury €5m villa in the hills of San Pedro near Puerto Banus and owns several properties in the Marbella region.
He is also behind a string of businesses in Ireland that are used to launder the drugs money, such as laundrettes. Many of these were raided by gardaí during 50 searches in Ireland last week.
With over a decade at the top of the drug-importation tree, Kinahan has found himself targeted by the British, Belgium, Dutch, Spanish, French and Portuguese police forces. He also features in intelligence bulletins issued by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
The sheer size of his operation is evidenced by the fact that gardaí have seized in excess of €70m worth of his drugs over the last eight years with officers estimating he has probably successfully imported over €1bn worth of drugs.
Because of his previous convictions for possessing drugs, when he was released from Portlaoise, Kinahan vowed that we would never touch any product again and operates on a strict 'hands-off' basis. He has a team of close associates who manage his affairs. His son Daniel – who was also arrested last week – is regarded by gardaí as being his point man in Ireland while John 'the Colonel' Cunningham is his closest associate in Spain.
If Christy Kinahan is to be successfully prosecuted then it will more than likely be phone taps that will bring him down rather than being physically linked to any drugs. Because of the recent clampdown on his activities by Spanish police it has been strongly rumoured that Kinahan was planning to retire to Ireland.
Because he is responsible for supplying the major Dublin drugs gangs, he has watched with frustration at the number of gangland murders that have taken place in Ireland over the last five years.
He is a great believer in keeping a low profile and lectures Irish gang bosses that murders only bring the unwanted attention of the gardaí and are bad for business.
Spanish police have now linked him to two murders and an attempted murder in Spain – if he was responsible he went to great lengths to cover his tracks because his name was not previously being mentioned as being involved.
In order to encourage peace in Irish gangland, Kinahan paid for 50 seats at a boxing match in the National Stadium last December and dozens of underworld figures attended, including the recently deceased Eamon 'the Don' Dunne. Many who went had been feuding and are believed to have attended out of respect for Kinahan.
He is a proud man who values his reputation. When it became known that he was planning to come back to Ireland, gangsters started to bring up an old dispute he had with notorious criminal Martin 'The Viper' Foley. The pair fell out in 1999 after Kinahan accused Foley of scamming him out of €100,000. Kinahan let the row settle and never sought revenge but he was accused by some people of being weak over the decision.
In January 2008, Kinahan decided that if he was to return home with his head held high he would have to take out his old adversary. Because it is next to impossible to do business without Kinahan's cooperation, he has most of Dublin's drug dealers over a barrel.
He turned to 'Fat' Freddie Thompson and said that he would take it as a personal favour if he organised the Viper's execution. Thompson knew Foley all his life and regarded him as a mentor but nevertheless he organised a gunman to pump four bullets into him outside a gym in Kimmage in south Dublin. Foley managed to survive the assassination bid.
Usually, such failed hits would result in retaliation but Foley quietly let the issue drop and has since made his peace with Kinahan. After the events of last week, it is unlikely that the Dapper Don will fulfill his dream of retiring home any time soon.
May 30, 2010
Mick McCaffrey
The undisputed godfather of Irish international organised crime, 53-year-old Christy Kinahan has come a long way from the flats on Oliver Bond Street in Dublin's south-inner city.
A former heroin addict who received his first criminal conviction in 1979, he has served several lengthy stints behind bars for offences such as possession of heroin and stolen cheques.
He realised that after being in jail for 11 of 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s that he needed a career change and decided to use his time in Portlaoise prison to educate himself. He became fluent in several European languages and even turned down a chance of early release to complete a degree in sociology. He was released from prison in 1997 and moved to Marbella, where he gradually began to cultivate contacts in the international drugs game.
He always fancied himself as a bit of a gentleman and shed his working-class accent for a more cultured European one complete with expensive suits made by top tailors. He is often seen wearing white silk suits and a panama hat, which has earned him the nickname the 'Dapper Don' in the Irish underworld.
His sense of style obviously went down well with the drugs cartels – he became one of the Colombian cartel's biggest customers and also does tens of millions of euro worth of drugs trade with the Russian mob. He is a true international player and supplies drugs to the UK, Portugal, Belgium and other European countries.
Most of the drugs that end up on the streets of Dublin have been sourced through Kinahan or his contacts. The drugs business has been good to him and it is estimated that he has built up a personal fortune of over €150m. His Spanish assets were last week frozen by a judge. He lives in a luxury €5m villa in the hills of San Pedro near Puerto Banus and owns several properties in the Marbella region.
He is also behind a string of businesses in Ireland that are used to launder the drugs money, such as laundrettes. Many of these were raided by gardaí during 50 searches in Ireland last week.
With over a decade at the top of the drug-importation tree, Kinahan has found himself targeted by the British, Belgium, Dutch, Spanish, French and Portuguese police forces. He also features in intelligence bulletins issued by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
The sheer size of his operation is evidenced by the fact that gardaí have seized in excess of €70m worth of his drugs over the last eight years with officers estimating he has probably successfully imported over €1bn worth of drugs.
Because of his previous convictions for possessing drugs, when he was released from Portlaoise, Kinahan vowed that we would never touch any product again and operates on a strict 'hands-off' basis. He has a team of close associates who manage his affairs. His son Daniel – who was also arrested last week – is regarded by gardaí as being his point man in Ireland while John 'the Colonel' Cunningham is his closest associate in Spain.
If Christy Kinahan is to be successfully prosecuted then it will more than likely be phone taps that will bring him down rather than being physically linked to any drugs. Because of the recent clampdown on his activities by Spanish police it has been strongly rumoured that Kinahan was planning to retire to Ireland.
Because he is responsible for supplying the major Dublin drugs gangs, he has watched with frustration at the number of gangland murders that have taken place in Ireland over the last five years.
He is a great believer in keeping a low profile and lectures Irish gang bosses that murders only bring the unwanted attention of the gardaí and are bad for business.
Spanish police have now linked him to two murders and an attempted murder in Spain – if he was responsible he went to great lengths to cover his tracks because his name was not previously being mentioned as being involved.
In order to encourage peace in Irish gangland, Kinahan paid for 50 seats at a boxing match in the National Stadium last December and dozens of underworld figures attended, including the recently deceased Eamon 'the Don' Dunne. Many who went had been feuding and are believed to have attended out of respect for Kinahan.
He is a proud man who values his reputation. When it became known that he was planning to come back to Ireland, gangsters started to bring up an old dispute he had with notorious criminal Martin 'The Viper' Foley. The pair fell out in 1999 after Kinahan accused Foley of scamming him out of €100,000. Kinahan let the row settle and never sought revenge but he was accused by some people of being weak over the decision.
In January 2008, Kinahan decided that if he was to return home with his head held high he would have to take out his old adversary. Because it is next to impossible to do business without Kinahan's cooperation, he has most of Dublin's drug dealers over a barrel.
He turned to 'Fat' Freddie Thompson and said that he would take it as a personal favour if he organised the Viper's execution. Thompson knew Foley all his life and regarded him as a mentor but nevertheless he organised a gunman to pump four bullets into him outside a gym in Kimmage in south Dublin. Foley managed to survive the assassination bid.
Usually, such failed hits would result in retaliation but Foley quietly let the issue drop and has since made his peace with Kinahan. After the events of last week, it is unlikely that the Dapper Don will fulfill his dream of retiring home any time soon.
May 30, 2010
The Don of a new era for Irish gangland
Sunday Tribune
A haunt of millionaires, the upmarket Costa del Sol resort is also home to many Irish criminals, where they enjoyed a life of luxury and openly carried on their drug operations – until last week. Security Editor Mick McCaffrey and photographer Mark Condren report from Puerto Banus
Peter 'Fatso' Mitchell
Deserted villa: the luxury Puerto Banus home of Peter 'Fatso' Mitchell, which he fled in terror for his life Picture Courtesy Solarprix.com
Christy Kinihan being led into court in Estepona yesterday Picture Courtesy Solarprix.com
Christy Kinihan junior Picture Courtesy Solarprix.com
Daniel Kinihan Picture Courtesy Solarprix.com
1 2 3 4 5 It is a scene that is played out with the regularity of clockwork. It's 11am and the first cars start to arrive at the Centro Plaza. One day a criminal will park in a spot to the north of the car park, the next he will go south and on the third day he will leave his BMW 100 yards up the road and walk.
Gangsters know they are meant to rotate their movements and regularly change their routine in case a gunman is waiting in the shadows. Whether they decide to drive or walk, wear a disguise of a hat and shades, or not, the Irish criminals are sitting ducks as they go down the steep stairs of Centro Plaza to the Plaza Gym below the swanky Yanx café and restaurant. They cannot help it; they are creatures of habit who lack the discipline to take the personal safety precautions the Russian mafia take for granted as part of their daily lives.
It is this little corner of Puerto Banus on the Spanish Costa del Sol that Irish criminals call home. It is little Ireland, where the likes of Fat Freddie, the Dapper Don and the Colonel feel safe and comfortable. They lead a pleasant life in near year-round sunshine with nothing to fear except the odd bit of interference from the local constabulary.
Until last week that is.
Most of the Irish drug dealers were tucked up safely in their beds when the first door was kicked in just after 4.30am last Tuesday morning. By mid-morning, 16 people had been detained in Spain, nine lifted in the UK and one man arrested by the gardaí. It was the culmination of Operation Shovel, an investigation that had been two years in the making and involved police forces around Europe.
The most significant work was done in Spain. Fifty-three year-old Christy Kinahan, the undisputed godfather of Irish organised crime and drug importation, was in cuffs along with his two sons. His closest associate, 59-year-old John 'The Colonel' Cunningham, who was responsible for the kidnap of Jennifer Guinness in 1986, was also behind bars.
It sent shockwaves not just across the Irish underworld but around continental Europe where Kinahan, nicknamed the Dapper Don, had become one of the biggest players over the last decade.
Kinahan is currently languishing in a Spanish jail while he waits to learn the case against him. His Spanish assets have been frozen and his business is in tatters.
For the smaller Irish criminal in Puerto Banus there is nothing that can be done so life goes on as normal. Each morning, expatriate Irish criminals and drug dealers head to the Plaza Gym. They have made sure to inject themselves with bodybuilding steroids while eating their breakfast of bananas and yoghurt. The Plaza is a very reputable and popular gym where, for the Irish, socialising is as important as pumping iron.
Almost every Irish criminal with links to the Spanish costas is a member here. Freddie Thompson received a bad beating outside the gym earlier this year following a row with a foreign criminal. For €56 a month, you can rub shoulders with gangsters from the UK, the Netherlands, not to mention Crumlin, Finglas, Limerick and Dublin's north-inner city.
Artificially pumped physiques and tattoos covering most of the arms are musts, as is the obligatory cup of coffee and light lunch in Yanx after a two-hour workout. It is at Yanx that the phones are produced. There is no suggestion that the owners are aware of the identities of their customers.
Each dealer generally has three or four phones on the go at once and 'rinses' them every few days so they cannot be bugged. A phone call here and there or a quick chat with the Russian or Turk and the day's work is done. The next shipment has been organised and the criminal can be happy in the knowledge that a large batch of cocaine or cannabis should arrive at Rosslare Port the following month and flood cities and towns around the country within a few days of arriving in Irish territory. The profits are such that a clever dealer could work from Spain for three years and make enough money to retire on – but it rarely works like that in gangland.
After lunch, the criminals go home and sunbathe for the afternoon and generally take it easy. Because a lot of Irish gangsters have fled Ireland, many of their families also live here and there are frequent visitors over from Dublin. The average drug dealer lives in a rented villa with a swimming pool and most nights they converge on the port of Puerto Banus to socialise around the string of Irish pubs, invariably ending up in Linekers, the area's most popular bar. Cocaine is readily available and invariably used and the party goes on till the early hours of the morning before they go home and sleep for a few hours before going back to the gym to get rid of the hangover. It is the same story every day.
Puerto Banus is a strange place, a microcosm of Irish society. Many well-known millionaire property developers – including Sean FitzPatrick – proudly call it a home-from-home. Hundreds of gardaí also own property here. It is not unusual to go to an outdoor bar down at the port and see the likes of a property developer sipping a glass of wine, a senior garda enjoying a beer a few yards away while a notorious criminal drinks a pint bottle of Bulmers at the next table.
The property developers and ordinary Irish citizens who own homes here are frustrated that the area has seemingly been taken over by the criminals. After negative media publicity following a shooting in 2008, the rental market dropped by nearly 15% because a lot of Irish visitors have stopped coming over, being put off by reports of gangsterism and open drug dealing. It is not as bad as it has been made out but drugs are easily bought and are hawked in bars that charge €7 for a pint of local beer.
Before its unwanted reputation as the central hub of the European drugs market, Puerto Banus was best-known as a playground for the rich and famous. Yachts worth tens of millions of euro crowd the harbour while prostitutes openly offer their services in almost every bar.
Years of inertia by the police mean Spain is regarded as a country that treats organised crime lightly so it is obviously an attractive place for Irish criminals. There were always underworld figures based in and around Puerto Banus but the criminal population has swelled in the last year. When Dermot Ahern introduced legislation last summer to allow for people to be convicted of membership of a criminal organisation on the word of a chief superintendent, it sent shivers down the spines of gangsters. They deserted Ireland in their droves, fearing they would be picked up and charged under the new laws. The majority ended up in Puerto Banus, with gardaí estimating that as many as 70 Irish criminals are now based there full time. The leader of one of the Crumlin/Drimnagh based gangs, Fat Freddie Thompson is here almost permanently, as are half a dozen of his senior lieutenants.
Sixteen people have been murdered in the Crumlin/Drimnagh feud, but members of the rival gang are now based here too and the two gangs coexist together peacefully. The attitude is that when they are in Dublin feuding is fair game but there is no point in bringing the hostilities to Spain with them.
The common link for these criminals is Christy Kinahan, the Mr Fixit. Not much business is done here without his involvement, knowledge or consent.
Two hundred yards away from Centro Plaza lies a luxury villa surrounded by high fences with CCTV monitoring the front gate. It is on a vast piece of land but beyond the imposing security measures, the five-bedroom villa is falling in to serious disrepair. Long grass covers what once was a perfectly manicured lawn, the outdoor swimming pool is black and debris floats on the surface of the water.
Inside, a few personal items have been left behind on the floor because the owner left in a hurry.
The owner in question is Peter 'Fatso' Mitchell, a 40-year-old originally from Dublin's north-inner city. He was a member of John Gilligan's gang and fled Ireland following the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin in 1996. He was until last year one of the lords of the Irish underworld in Spain. Regarded as being extremely close to both Christy Kinahan and John Cunningham, he was a loyal member of Kinahan's crime network. One of Fatso's closest friends is a former Premiership footballer who lives in Marbella and specialises in money laundering.
Fatso owned the Paparazzi bar just up the road from his home. Some of its customers read like a who's who of Irish and international drug dealers who met there to discuss business and mastermind drugs shipments. It was a busy spot and Mitchell made a very good living from the bar but the Spanish police were unhappy with what was going on there and began to pay it close attention, which frightened its less law-abiding clientele, who deserted it.
The Spanish police eventually succeeded in having the pub shut down permanently. There was worse to follow for Fatso though.
In August 2008 he was having a drink at the El Jardin garden bar just a few minutes' away from his home when a masked gunman approached and opened fire. Mitchell was hit twice in the shoulder and ran through the garden and managed to escape. Two innocent customers were injured by stray bullets.
It was widely believed that Fatso had a falling-out with a foreign gang but he was nervous enough that as soon as he was released from hospital he hastily cleared out his villa and promptly left Puerto Banus behind forever.
It emerged last week that Spanish police have been quizzing Christy Kinahan about that attempted murder and believe he was behind it. This would explain Fatso's hurried departure because Christy Kinahan is not a man to be messed with and is extremely ruthless, although he does have a reputation for favouring discourse over violence. He does not tolerate anything getting in the way of making money and Mitchell obviously knew this only too well.
The closure of Fatso Mitchell's pub by the Spanish police is evidence that the activities of international criminals have been on their radar for a long time. For the last two years they have been in constant contact with gardaí, sharing intelligence and preparing the ground for last week's arrests.
In many ways, Peter Mitchell's dilapidated villa is a symbol of the demise of Spain as a safe haven for Irish criminals. It is up for sale with an asking price of €1.2m and Fatso is hiding out in the Netherlands, probably terrified that whoever tried to kill him will come back to finish the job. His wife has returned to Dublin, swapping a life of Spanish luxury for her old job as a street trader.
If the Spanish police and gardaí and the other international police agencies have done the groundwork and built good cases against Christy Kinahan and his cohorts, then we may well see a major shift in the way drug dealers do business.
Last week's events have shown that Spain is no longer an easy touch and that large-scale drug importation will no longer be tolerated by the authorities.
It could close Marbella and the surrounding areas almost overnight and see them being abandoned by Irish criminals. What is the point in living somewhere if it is not a safe place from where to operate?
In the wake of the raids there was a mass exodus from Marbella, with the more senior criminals moving further up the coast to digest what had happened and assess its potential significance.
A Spanish judge last week froze the assets of Freddie Thompson and Gary Hutch – a nephew of 'The Monk' Gerry Hutch – and indicated he wanted to talk to them about the 2008 murder of their friend Paddy Doyle near Malaga.
This almost certainly means that both men will not be setting foot in Spain for the foreseeable future so they will now have to find a more relaxed country to base themselves in.
Other criminals will inevitably be forced to do likewise. Property belonging to Thompson and Hutch was searched in Spain last week, but the two men were in the Netherlands and avoided arrest.
There is now a good chance that Amsterdam will re-emerge as the new drug-dealing base of choice but the Dutch police are no pushovers and are very experienced in dealing with the drug cartels.
Time will tell but we may well and truly have turned a corner, with the balance of power shifting from the dealer to the authorities for the first time in a long time.
May 30, 2010
A haunt of millionaires, the upmarket Costa del Sol resort is also home to many Irish criminals, where they enjoyed a life of luxury and openly carried on their drug operations – until last week. Security Editor Mick McCaffrey and photographer Mark Condren report from Puerto Banus
Peter 'Fatso' Mitchell
Deserted villa: the luxury Puerto Banus home of Peter 'Fatso' Mitchell, which he fled in terror for his life Picture Courtesy Solarprix.com
Christy Kinihan being led into court in Estepona yesterday Picture Courtesy Solarprix.com
Christy Kinihan junior Picture Courtesy Solarprix.com
Daniel Kinihan Picture Courtesy Solarprix.com
1 2 3 4 5 It is a scene that is played out with the regularity of clockwork. It's 11am and the first cars start to arrive at the Centro Plaza. One day a criminal will park in a spot to the north of the car park, the next he will go south and on the third day he will leave his BMW 100 yards up the road and walk.
Gangsters know they are meant to rotate their movements and regularly change their routine in case a gunman is waiting in the shadows. Whether they decide to drive or walk, wear a disguise of a hat and shades, or not, the Irish criminals are sitting ducks as they go down the steep stairs of Centro Plaza to the Plaza Gym below the swanky Yanx café and restaurant. They cannot help it; they are creatures of habit who lack the discipline to take the personal safety precautions the Russian mafia take for granted as part of their daily lives.
It is this little corner of Puerto Banus on the Spanish Costa del Sol that Irish criminals call home. It is little Ireland, where the likes of Fat Freddie, the Dapper Don and the Colonel feel safe and comfortable. They lead a pleasant life in near year-round sunshine with nothing to fear except the odd bit of interference from the local constabulary.
Until last week that is.
Most of the Irish drug dealers were tucked up safely in their beds when the first door was kicked in just after 4.30am last Tuesday morning. By mid-morning, 16 people had been detained in Spain, nine lifted in the UK and one man arrested by the gardaí. It was the culmination of Operation Shovel, an investigation that had been two years in the making and involved police forces around Europe.
The most significant work was done in Spain. Fifty-three year-old Christy Kinahan, the undisputed godfather of Irish organised crime and drug importation, was in cuffs along with his two sons. His closest associate, 59-year-old John 'The Colonel' Cunningham, who was responsible for the kidnap of Jennifer Guinness in 1986, was also behind bars.
It sent shockwaves not just across the Irish underworld but around continental Europe where Kinahan, nicknamed the Dapper Don, had become one of the biggest players over the last decade.
Kinahan is currently languishing in a Spanish jail while he waits to learn the case against him. His Spanish assets have been frozen and his business is in tatters.
For the smaller Irish criminal in Puerto Banus there is nothing that can be done so life goes on as normal. Each morning, expatriate Irish criminals and drug dealers head to the Plaza Gym. They have made sure to inject themselves with bodybuilding steroids while eating their breakfast of bananas and yoghurt. The Plaza is a very reputable and popular gym where, for the Irish, socialising is as important as pumping iron.
Almost every Irish criminal with links to the Spanish costas is a member here. Freddie Thompson received a bad beating outside the gym earlier this year following a row with a foreign criminal. For €56 a month, you can rub shoulders with gangsters from the UK, the Netherlands, not to mention Crumlin, Finglas, Limerick and Dublin's north-inner city.
Artificially pumped physiques and tattoos covering most of the arms are musts, as is the obligatory cup of coffee and light lunch in Yanx after a two-hour workout. It is at Yanx that the phones are produced. There is no suggestion that the owners are aware of the identities of their customers.
Each dealer generally has three or four phones on the go at once and 'rinses' them every few days so they cannot be bugged. A phone call here and there or a quick chat with the Russian or Turk and the day's work is done. The next shipment has been organised and the criminal can be happy in the knowledge that a large batch of cocaine or cannabis should arrive at Rosslare Port the following month and flood cities and towns around the country within a few days of arriving in Irish territory. The profits are such that a clever dealer could work from Spain for three years and make enough money to retire on – but it rarely works like that in gangland.
After lunch, the criminals go home and sunbathe for the afternoon and generally take it easy. Because a lot of Irish gangsters have fled Ireland, many of their families also live here and there are frequent visitors over from Dublin. The average drug dealer lives in a rented villa with a swimming pool and most nights they converge on the port of Puerto Banus to socialise around the string of Irish pubs, invariably ending up in Linekers, the area's most popular bar. Cocaine is readily available and invariably used and the party goes on till the early hours of the morning before they go home and sleep for a few hours before going back to the gym to get rid of the hangover. It is the same story every day.
Puerto Banus is a strange place, a microcosm of Irish society. Many well-known millionaire property developers – including Sean FitzPatrick – proudly call it a home-from-home. Hundreds of gardaí also own property here. It is not unusual to go to an outdoor bar down at the port and see the likes of a property developer sipping a glass of wine, a senior garda enjoying a beer a few yards away while a notorious criminal drinks a pint bottle of Bulmers at the next table.
The property developers and ordinary Irish citizens who own homes here are frustrated that the area has seemingly been taken over by the criminals. After negative media publicity following a shooting in 2008, the rental market dropped by nearly 15% because a lot of Irish visitors have stopped coming over, being put off by reports of gangsterism and open drug dealing. It is not as bad as it has been made out but drugs are easily bought and are hawked in bars that charge €7 for a pint of local beer.
Before its unwanted reputation as the central hub of the European drugs market, Puerto Banus was best-known as a playground for the rich and famous. Yachts worth tens of millions of euro crowd the harbour while prostitutes openly offer their services in almost every bar.
Years of inertia by the police mean Spain is regarded as a country that treats organised crime lightly so it is obviously an attractive place for Irish criminals. There were always underworld figures based in and around Puerto Banus but the criminal population has swelled in the last year. When Dermot Ahern introduced legislation last summer to allow for people to be convicted of membership of a criminal organisation on the word of a chief superintendent, it sent shivers down the spines of gangsters. They deserted Ireland in their droves, fearing they would be picked up and charged under the new laws. The majority ended up in Puerto Banus, with gardaí estimating that as many as 70 Irish criminals are now based there full time. The leader of one of the Crumlin/Drimnagh based gangs, Fat Freddie Thompson is here almost permanently, as are half a dozen of his senior lieutenants.
Sixteen people have been murdered in the Crumlin/Drimnagh feud, but members of the rival gang are now based here too and the two gangs coexist together peacefully. The attitude is that when they are in Dublin feuding is fair game but there is no point in bringing the hostilities to Spain with them.
The common link for these criminals is Christy Kinahan, the Mr Fixit. Not much business is done here without his involvement, knowledge or consent.
Two hundred yards away from Centro Plaza lies a luxury villa surrounded by high fences with CCTV monitoring the front gate. It is on a vast piece of land but beyond the imposing security measures, the five-bedroom villa is falling in to serious disrepair. Long grass covers what once was a perfectly manicured lawn, the outdoor swimming pool is black and debris floats on the surface of the water.
Inside, a few personal items have been left behind on the floor because the owner left in a hurry.
The owner in question is Peter 'Fatso' Mitchell, a 40-year-old originally from Dublin's north-inner city. He was a member of John Gilligan's gang and fled Ireland following the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin in 1996. He was until last year one of the lords of the Irish underworld in Spain. Regarded as being extremely close to both Christy Kinahan and John Cunningham, he was a loyal member of Kinahan's crime network. One of Fatso's closest friends is a former Premiership footballer who lives in Marbella and specialises in money laundering.
Fatso owned the Paparazzi bar just up the road from his home. Some of its customers read like a who's who of Irish and international drug dealers who met there to discuss business and mastermind drugs shipments. It was a busy spot and Mitchell made a very good living from the bar but the Spanish police were unhappy with what was going on there and began to pay it close attention, which frightened its less law-abiding clientele, who deserted it.
The Spanish police eventually succeeded in having the pub shut down permanently. There was worse to follow for Fatso though.
In August 2008 he was having a drink at the El Jardin garden bar just a few minutes' away from his home when a masked gunman approached and opened fire. Mitchell was hit twice in the shoulder and ran through the garden and managed to escape. Two innocent customers were injured by stray bullets.
It was widely believed that Fatso had a falling-out with a foreign gang but he was nervous enough that as soon as he was released from hospital he hastily cleared out his villa and promptly left Puerto Banus behind forever.
It emerged last week that Spanish police have been quizzing Christy Kinahan about that attempted murder and believe he was behind it. This would explain Fatso's hurried departure because Christy Kinahan is not a man to be messed with and is extremely ruthless, although he does have a reputation for favouring discourse over violence. He does not tolerate anything getting in the way of making money and Mitchell obviously knew this only too well.
The closure of Fatso Mitchell's pub by the Spanish police is evidence that the activities of international criminals have been on their radar for a long time. For the last two years they have been in constant contact with gardaí, sharing intelligence and preparing the ground for last week's arrests.
In many ways, Peter Mitchell's dilapidated villa is a symbol of the demise of Spain as a safe haven for Irish criminals. It is up for sale with an asking price of €1.2m and Fatso is hiding out in the Netherlands, probably terrified that whoever tried to kill him will come back to finish the job. His wife has returned to Dublin, swapping a life of Spanish luxury for her old job as a street trader.
If the Spanish police and gardaí and the other international police agencies have done the groundwork and built good cases against Christy Kinahan and his cohorts, then we may well see a major shift in the way drug dealers do business.
Last week's events have shown that Spain is no longer an easy touch and that large-scale drug importation will no longer be tolerated by the authorities.
It could close Marbella and the surrounding areas almost overnight and see them being abandoned by Irish criminals. What is the point in living somewhere if it is not a safe place from where to operate?
In the wake of the raids there was a mass exodus from Marbella, with the more senior criminals moving further up the coast to digest what had happened and assess its potential significance.
A Spanish judge last week froze the assets of Freddie Thompson and Gary Hutch – a nephew of 'The Monk' Gerry Hutch – and indicated he wanted to talk to them about the 2008 murder of their friend Paddy Doyle near Malaga.
This almost certainly means that both men will not be setting foot in Spain for the foreseeable future so they will now have to find a more relaxed country to base themselves in.
Other criminals will inevitably be forced to do likewise. Property belonging to Thompson and Hutch was searched in Spain last week, but the two men were in the Netherlands and avoided arrest.
There is now a good chance that Amsterdam will re-emerge as the new drug-dealing base of choice but the Dutch police are no pushovers and are very experienced in dealing with the drug cartels.
Time will tell but we may well and truly have turned a corner, with the balance of power shifting from the dealer to the authorities for the first time in a long time.
May 30, 2010
Friday 28 May 2010
Judges to quiz Irish gangsters on €250m drug empire links
Judges to quiz Irish gangsters on €250m drug empire links
By Gerard Couzens and Tom Brady
Friday May 28 2010
SPANISH authorities want to question two major crime figures here about their involvement with drug kingpin Christy Kinahan.
The pair have been named on a list of people Spanish judges plan to question following the arrest of Kinahan (53) on the Costa del Sol and the break-up of a criminal empire, which police believe is worth €250m, he is suspected of heading.
Both of the Irish-based criminals have been moving between here and Spain for more than two years and are friends of some of those already arrested in this week's inquiries.
One of the suspects is a convicted criminal and was questioned by gardai last year about the €7.2m tiger kidnap of an official from the Bank of Ireland branch at College Green in the centre of Dublin.
Another suspect for that robbery was detained by gardai on Tuesday over his alleged links to Kinahan's empire but was later released.
The criminal was also a suspect for the murder of Derek Duffy, of St Attracta's Road, Cabra, in September 2007. Duffy was murdered in the front seat of his car after he had agreed to meet the gunman.
The second man wanted for questioning is the reputed leader of one of the gangs involved in the deadly Crumlin-Drimnagh feud and he relocated to Spain last summer -- but keeps in close touch with his associates here.
Assets
An Estepona-based judge currently co-ordinating the Kinahan inquiry has named both men in the formal judicial proceedings that opened after Tuesday's arrests.
Christy Kinahan and his alleged right-hand man John Cunningham, who were detained during dawn raids at their Costa del Sol homes, are also on a list of people and companies linked to the police operation drawn up by the judge at court number three in Estepona.
The judge intends to quiz all 22 people on the list about the massive drug-trafficking and money-laundering operation. After they give statements, the judge will decide whether to make them witnesses or suspects. Their assets have been frozen by court order as a precautionary measure.
The list is expected to expand in coming days as the inquiry continues. But a source close to the inquiry said: "They are all regarded as part of this case and will be called to court for questioning."
More than 30 firms suspected of being fronts for money laundering and drug trafficking are also on the list drawn up by the judge. Police believe the companies involved may have been used to ship drugs between Spain, Ireland and the UK.
Spain's Interior Minister Alfredo Rubalcaba described the gang under investigation as one of the "most dangerous" ever tackled.
Hilario Lopez, the Spanish government's delegate in Malaga Province, said: "Those involved in organised crime know they're being pursued.
"The feeling of impunity they once enjoyed no longer exists."
- Gerard Couzens and Tom Brady
Irish Independent
By Gerard Couzens and Tom Brady
Friday May 28 2010
SPANISH authorities want to question two major crime figures here about their involvement with drug kingpin Christy Kinahan.
The pair have been named on a list of people Spanish judges plan to question following the arrest of Kinahan (53) on the Costa del Sol and the break-up of a criminal empire, which police believe is worth €250m, he is suspected of heading.
Both of the Irish-based criminals have been moving between here and Spain for more than two years and are friends of some of those already arrested in this week's inquiries.
One of the suspects is a convicted criminal and was questioned by gardai last year about the €7.2m tiger kidnap of an official from the Bank of Ireland branch at College Green in the centre of Dublin.
Another suspect for that robbery was detained by gardai on Tuesday over his alleged links to Kinahan's empire but was later released.
The criminal was also a suspect for the murder of Derek Duffy, of St Attracta's Road, Cabra, in September 2007. Duffy was murdered in the front seat of his car after he had agreed to meet the gunman.
The second man wanted for questioning is the reputed leader of one of the gangs involved in the deadly Crumlin-Drimnagh feud and he relocated to Spain last summer -- but keeps in close touch with his associates here.
Assets
An Estepona-based judge currently co-ordinating the Kinahan inquiry has named both men in the formal judicial proceedings that opened after Tuesday's arrests.
Christy Kinahan and his alleged right-hand man John Cunningham, who were detained during dawn raids at their Costa del Sol homes, are also on a list of people and companies linked to the police operation drawn up by the judge at court number three in Estepona.
The judge intends to quiz all 22 people on the list about the massive drug-trafficking and money-laundering operation. After they give statements, the judge will decide whether to make them witnesses or suspects. Their assets have been frozen by court order as a precautionary measure.
The list is expected to expand in coming days as the inquiry continues. But a source close to the inquiry said: "They are all regarded as part of this case and will be called to court for questioning."
More than 30 firms suspected of being fronts for money laundering and drug trafficking are also on the list drawn up by the judge. Police believe the companies involved may have been used to ship drugs between Spain, Ireland and the UK.
Spain's Interior Minister Alfredo Rubalcaba described the gang under investigation as one of the "most dangerous" ever tackled.
Hilario Lopez, the Spanish government's delegate in Malaga Province, said: "Those involved in organised crime know they're being pursued.
"The feeling of impunity they once enjoyed no longer exists."
- Gerard Couzens and Tom Brady
Irish Independent
Dublin gangsters linked to Kinahan
Irish Times 28/05/10
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TWO LEADING Dublin gangland figures have emerged as suspects in the investigation in Spain into the drugs and money laundering cartel headed by Irishman Christy Kinahan.
The pair have been named in court documents in Spain as part of a wider list of suspects in the Kinahan investigation.
The men, who are both in their late 20s, are leading members of two of Dublin’s main armed robbery and drugs gangs.
The presence of the men’s names on the official list of suspects represents the first firm link between Kinahan’s international gang and organised crime groups in Ireland.
One of the suspects now being sought in Spain is a member of a well-known crime family from Dublin’s north inner city. The man is the chief suspect for the murder of Derek Duffy in Finglas, Dublin, in September 2007, and has been questioned about that killing. Mr Duffy was shot five times as he sat in his car, and an attempt was made to set the car on fire with his remains inside.
The north inner city man now sought in Spain is also a suspect for the €7.6 million tiger robbery at the Bank of Ireland in College Green, Dublin, in February 2009, when a bank worker’s family was held at gunpoint.
He has served a number of prison sentences. It is not clear whether he is living in Spain or Ireland at present, but he has split his time between both jurisdictions.
The second young Irish gangland figure now being sought by the Spanish team investigating the Kinahan gang is the leader of one of two gangs involved in a feud in Dublin’s Crumlin and Drimnagh suburbs. That feud has cost the lives of at least 14 people in the past 10 years.
The Crumlin-Drimnagh gang leader is believed to be living in Spain at present. He has been linked to drug dealing and gun and pipe bomb attacks here. Assets in Spain of both of the Dublin gangland figures now sought, believed to be bank accounts, have been frozen.
Kinahan (53), from Dublin’s south inner city, remained in custody in Spain last night after his arrest there along with 21 other suspects on Tuesday morning.
His southern Spain-based gang is believed to have supplied vast quantities of cocaine and cannabis to gangs in Ireland and Britain for almost a decade.
Kinahan’s close associate, the convicted armed robber and Jennifer Guinness kidnapper John Cunningham (58), also remains in custody in Spain.
The man arrested in Dublin on Tuesday as part of the international operation against the Kinahan gang has been released on bail after appearing before the courts on drug charges.
Like the north inner city criminal now wanted in Spain, the man arrested here on Tuesday was also arrested last year in connection with the Bank of Ireland €7.6 million tiger robbery.
The 11 suspects linked to the Kinahan gang who were arrested in Britain on Tuesday have been released pending further inquiries.
Investigations are continuing in Ireland, Britain, Spain, Brazil, Dubai, South Africa, Cyprus and Belgium into the assets portfolio amassed by the Kinahan gang. Property valued at €500 million has been traced in Brazil, and 60 properties in Spain, valued at €150 million, have been frozen.
The international search operation on Tuesday, which involved 700 police officers, yielded two guns – in Britain and in Spain – as well as €100,000 in cash and a small quantity of cocaine here.
A large number of fake and blank passports were found in Spain. Documentation related to property purchases was seized in Britain, Spain and Ireland. There were more than 50 searches at residential addresses and at accountants and solicitors’s offices here.
Wednesday 26 May 2010
Irish gangster held after international police sting
Dubliner Christy Kinahan arrested in Spain and accused of money laundering, drug dealing and arms smuggling
Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 May 2010 14.07 BST
Article history
Garda commissioner Fachtna Murphy briefs reporters after an international policing operation targeted a global crime network. Photograph: Julien Behal/PA
An Irish gangster accused of supplying drugs and guns to criminal gangs in British cities is in Spanish custody today, following an international operation involving 700 police officers.
Christy Kinahan, arrested in Spain early yesterday, used UK horseracing meetings to launder and distribute "dirty money" he earned from drug dealing and arms smuggling. He ran narcotics and weapons to criminal gangs in Liverpool, Manchester and London, Garda sources said today.
The arrest of Kinahan, 53, from Dublin, was one of a series of raids this week in Spain, the UK, Ireland, Brazil and Belgium aimed at smashing a global crime network. A total of 34 people are being held across Europe, including 10 Irish nationals in Spain, England and Ireland. Kinahan was arrested at his apartment near Marbella on the Costa del Sol.
Trevor Pearce from the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency said the raids dealt a major blow to criminals across Europe. "We also believe this network has been offering a global investment service, ploughing hundreds of millions of pounds of dirty cash into offshore accounts, companies and property on behalf of criminals," he said.
Ireland's justice minister, Dermot Ahern, said moving abroad would no longer provide a haven for criminals wanted in Ireland. "These events are evidence of the determination of those involved in law enforcement, fully supported by their governments, to take international gangs straight on," he said.
Among those also arrested in Spain were John Cunningham, 58, an armed robber and drug dealer. He was convicted in 1986 for the kidnapping of one of the heirs to the Guinness family fortune, Jennifer Guinness.
Eleven properties in Spain were searched during the early morning raids, the details of which were disclosed today. Both Cunningham and Kinahan can be held without charge for up to two years under Spanish law.
In Dublin, 29 premises were searched and one man in his 20s arrested. The places targeted include a solicitor's and accountants' offices.
Gardai are examining a number of front companies that operate in Ireland, the UK and Spain that claim to export food from the Iberian peninsula but which detectives believe are being used to transport cannabis and cocaine into Britain and Ireland.
Tuesday 25 May 2010
Two men are held in Don murder probe
Irish Herald
Tuesday May 25 2010
TWO members of a north Dublin gang were today arrested over the murder of mobster, Eamon Dunne.
One of the gang members was taken from Mountjoy prison by murder hunt detectives this morning.
It follows a major breakthrough in the case.
Detectives identified the men who bought the VW Passat used in the murder of Dublin drugs kingpin Dunne -- known as the Don.
The suspects, both in their 20s, are closely associated with a north inner city gang.
It's a massive breakthrough for gardai -- who are now confident of bringing all four killers to justice.
Detectives believe a number of gangs got together to kill Dunne.
Affairs
One of the reasons, sources said, for his murder was that he was carrying on affairs with other gang member's wives and girlfriends.
The arrests are the first in the month-long probe into Dunne's murder at the Faussagh House pub.
The pair are being held at Whitehall and Mountjoy garda stations and can be quizzed for up to 72 hours.
There were four men directly involved in the killing, with two gunmen entering the Faussagh House pub in Cabra before shooting Dunne (32) six times, three times as he lay on the ground.
He was sitting next to his teenage daughter at the time of the killing, on April 23 last. One was taken from Mountjoy Prison, it is understood, for the questioning while the other was picked up by gardai in the Dublin area.
The two suspects are in their 20s and are being held under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act and can be held and questioned for at least 72 hours.
Dunne’s murder is believed to have been the work of a ruthless young gang of thugs from the north Dublin inner city.
Dunne was one the country’s most notorious and ruthless criminals, who has been linked to more than a dozen murders.
He was shot in front of a pub full of people celebrating a birthday party.
Two men entered the pub, while another kept watch at the door and the fourth waited in the getaway vehicle.
The car was abandoned not far from the scene but an attempt to burn it out failed, leaving vital clues for gardai. It is understood that a glove was found in the car.
Gardai also carried out detailed forensic tests in the hope of finding DNA evidence.
A large team of detectives from across the city have been working on the case, which ranks among the most highprofile gangland killings ever in Ireland.
A post mortem revealed that he had been shot six times in the head and upper body from close range. The killer used a 9mm automatic pistol.
The Don’s death has also sparked fears of a turf war between his understudies who may want to take over the running of his lucrative drug empire.
Gardai have been investigating a number of motives for this murder.
Dunne had an extensive list of enemies in the Dublin underworld and would have crossed swords with not just rival gangs but also members of his own units.
He took control of the Finglas- based drugs outfit in 2006 following the murder of the notorious Martin Marlo Hyland.
It is widely believed that Dunne ordered that hit which also resulted in the slaying of innocent young plumber Anthony Campbell.
Dunne had been warned by gardaí his life was in danger and often wore a bullet-proof vest, but was said to be relaxed on the night of his death.
hnews@herald.ie
- Cormac Byrne and Kevin Doyle
Dozens arrested in international crackdown on British and Irish crime syndicate
Officers in Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Cyprus and Brazil launch dawn raids in 'major blow' to criminal activity in UK and Europe
Adam Gabbatt
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 May 2010 15.43 BST
Police today arrested 32 people across Europe in a series of raids on British and Irish citizens suspected of masterminding an international drugs and firearms network.
Officers in Spain, Ireland and the UK launched simultaneous dawn raids in what the executive director of the UK's serious organised crime agency (Soca) described as a "major blow" to criminal activity in the UK and Europe.
Spanish National police arrested 20 people, including a British national living in Malaga and suspected of being the head of the international crime syndicate.
Irish-born Christopher Kinahan, known as Christy, was arrested at his villa in the Costa del Sol, where the criminal operation is believed to be based.
The 53-year-old's sons, Daniel and Christopher Junior, were also detained.
Soca said the 20 individuals arrested in Spain were being held for questioning at a police station in Malaga.
In the UK, about 230 officers searched businesses and homes, and arrested nine men and two women.
"This scale of this joint operation by law enforcement agencies from so many countries is an indication of how prolific we think this network was," Trevor Pearce, the Soca executive director, said.
"Today's arrests will have dealt a major blow to an organised criminal business suspected of supplying drugs and guns to gangs in cities across the UK and Europe."
It is believed the trafficking gang was also running a Europe-wide operation to launder cash through businesses in Ireland, Spain and the UK, and the import-export trade.
The investigation is said to have been building momentum for about two years.
Homes and businesses in Belgium, Cyprus and Brazil were also searched, Soca said.
In Ireland, 17 homes and businesses across greater Dublin and neighbouring Co Meath were raided, and a man in his 20s arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking.
Officers from the Garda national drugs unit were questioning the man at a police station in Dublin.
"Over a significant period of time, An Garda Siochana has engaged in the highest levels of co-operation and partnership with law enforcement colleagues in a number of key countries including the Spanish National police, Soca and the Belgians, culminating in today's operation," the Garda commissioner, Fachtna Murphy, said.
"The message from today's operation is clear – there is no hiding place for those who seek to bring misery and hurt to communities here in Ireland and abroad.
"If people choose to trade drugs and death across borders, police will work together across those same borders to address that challenge and disrupt criminal activity."
Friday 14 May 2010
Rocket launchers and cocaine seized in raid on crime gang
Rocket launchers and cocaine seized in raid on crime gang
By Tom Brady Security Editor
Friday May 14 2010
TWO loaded rocket launchers seized from a crime gang by gardai yesterday are capable of destroying an armoured security van -- or even the homes of feuding gangsters.
The disposable launchers, which were seized along with a cocaine shipment in a raid by gardai, can be fired from the shoulder and discarded after being used only once.
The rockets, which had been fitted with warheads, were last night taken away by Army bomb disposal experts to the Glen of Imaal in Co Wicklow to be made safe.
The weapons had been stored by a major Dublin south city crime gang in a rented shed located at the rear of a block of five industrial units on the Clane road, at Longtown, Straffan, Co Kildare.
Armed officers from the organised crime unit raided the premises at 9.30am yesterday.
And they found the rockets -- one of which has been identified as a Russian-made RPG-22 -- an AK assault rifle and nine kilos of cocaine with a street value of between €700,000 and €800,000 hidden inside barrels.
The raid was part of Operation Lamp, which has been targeting members of a drug trafficking gang, based in the Crumlin area of Dublin.
Senior officers believe the gang had purchased the cocaine from one of the biggest suppliers to the Irish market -- a Crumlin-born criminal who fled to Spain more than two years ago as the gardai moved in on his operations.
The criminal, who is in his early 30s and has convictions here for assault and possession of a firearm with intent to rob, has been supplying shipments of drugs to his former associates in the south city since establishing himself in Spain.
It is the first time gardai have found rocket launchers in the possession of a criminal gang.
The seizure marks a significant upgrading of the type of weaponry now available to the drug traffickers. Some of the suspects have loose connections with one of the gangs involved in the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud.
Gardai were last night trying to establish if the shoulder-held rockets were to have been used against a rival outfit.
However, officers said it is also possible that the weapons -- which were notoriously difficult to fire on target when in the hands of terrorists during the troubles in Northern Ireland -- could have been used in a raid on a security vans carrying large amounts of cash and guarded by an Army escort.
Manufactured in the 1990s, the RPG-22 is said to be incapable of piercing a tank but could penetrate a cash in transit van or used as an assault weapon if attacking rival gangsters in a house.
Gardai believe both rocket-launchers were purchased by the drugs gang from either dissident republicans or as part of the cocaine consignment.
Shipments
They do not think they were part of the shipments of weaponry smuggled into the country by the Provisional IRA, prior to its ceasefire.
Three years ago a joint operation by gardai and the Serious Organised Crime Agency in Britain foiled an attempt to smuggle rocket launchers and other weapons into Ireland for the McCarthy-Dundon gang in Limerick.
The raid on the shed followed the seizure of another kilo of cocaine at the Naas Road, near Rathcoole, Co Dublin, on Thursday evening when the organised crime unit stopped two cars and detained four men.
The men, suspected of being members of the Crumlin gang, were being questioned last night at Clondalkin garda station under anti-drug trafficking legislation.
Follow-up searches in four houses resulted in the seizure of a kilo of cannabis and €16,000 in cash at a house in Glasnevin.
Two of the suspects are from Crumlin and one is alleged by gardai to be the "right hand man" here of the supplier in Spain.
The other two live in Glasnevin and Clonsilla and are suspected of being involved in the collection of a kilo of cocaine from other members of the gang.
The gang are believed to have moved their main storage depot to the shed outside Straffan because of increased garda patrols in the Crumlin area.
Gardai are also trying to establish if a Dublin criminal, now living outside Naas, was linked to the find.
- Tom Brady Security Editor
Irish Independent
By Tom Brady Security Editor
Friday May 14 2010
TWO loaded rocket launchers seized from a crime gang by gardai yesterday are capable of destroying an armoured security van -- or even the homes of feuding gangsters.
The disposable launchers, which were seized along with a cocaine shipment in a raid by gardai, can be fired from the shoulder and discarded after being used only once.
The rockets, which had been fitted with warheads, were last night taken away by Army bomb disposal experts to the Glen of Imaal in Co Wicklow to be made safe.
The weapons had been stored by a major Dublin south city crime gang in a rented shed located at the rear of a block of five industrial units on the Clane road, at Longtown, Straffan, Co Kildare.
Armed officers from the organised crime unit raided the premises at 9.30am yesterday.
And they found the rockets -- one of which has been identified as a Russian-made RPG-22 -- an AK assault rifle and nine kilos of cocaine with a street value of between €700,000 and €800,000 hidden inside barrels.
The raid was part of Operation Lamp, which has been targeting members of a drug trafficking gang, based in the Crumlin area of Dublin.
Senior officers believe the gang had purchased the cocaine from one of the biggest suppliers to the Irish market -- a Crumlin-born criminal who fled to Spain more than two years ago as the gardai moved in on his operations.
The criminal, who is in his early 30s and has convictions here for assault and possession of a firearm with intent to rob, has been supplying shipments of drugs to his former associates in the south city since establishing himself in Spain.
It is the first time gardai have found rocket launchers in the possession of a criminal gang.
The seizure marks a significant upgrading of the type of weaponry now available to the drug traffickers. Some of the suspects have loose connections with one of the gangs involved in the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud.
Gardai were last night trying to establish if the shoulder-held rockets were to have been used against a rival outfit.
However, officers said it is also possible that the weapons -- which were notoriously difficult to fire on target when in the hands of terrorists during the troubles in Northern Ireland -- could have been used in a raid on a security vans carrying large amounts of cash and guarded by an Army escort.
Manufactured in the 1990s, the RPG-22 is said to be incapable of piercing a tank but could penetrate a cash in transit van or used as an assault weapon if attacking rival gangsters in a house.
Gardai believe both rocket-launchers were purchased by the drugs gang from either dissident republicans or as part of the cocaine consignment.
Shipments
They do not think they were part of the shipments of weaponry smuggled into the country by the Provisional IRA, prior to its ceasefire.
Three years ago a joint operation by gardai and the Serious Organised Crime Agency in Britain foiled an attempt to smuggle rocket launchers and other weapons into Ireland for the McCarthy-Dundon gang in Limerick.
The raid on the shed followed the seizure of another kilo of cocaine at the Naas Road, near Rathcoole, Co Dublin, on Thursday evening when the organised crime unit stopped two cars and detained four men.
The men, suspected of being members of the Crumlin gang, were being questioned last night at Clondalkin garda station under anti-drug trafficking legislation.
Follow-up searches in four houses resulted in the seizure of a kilo of cannabis and €16,000 in cash at a house in Glasnevin.
Two of the suspects are from Crumlin and one is alleged by gardai to be the "right hand man" here of the supplier in Spain.
The other two live in Glasnevin and Clonsilla and are suspected of being involved in the collection of a kilo of cocaine from other members of the gang.
The gang are believed to have moved their main storage depot to the shed outside Straffan because of increased garda patrols in the Crumlin area.
Gardai are also trying to establish if a Dublin criminal, now living outside Naas, was linked to the find.
- Tom Brady Security Editor
Irish Independent
Rocket launchers and cocaine seized in raid on crime gang
Sunday Independent
Friday May 14 2010
TWO loaded rocket launchers seized from a crime gang by gardai yesterday are capable of destroying an armoured security van -- or even the homes of feuding gangsters.
The disposable launchers, which were seized along with a cocaine shipment in a raid by gardai, can be fired from the shoulder and discarded after being used only once.
The rockets, which had been fitted with warheads, were last night taken away by Army bomb disposal experts to the Glen of Imaal in Co Wicklow to be made safe.
The weapons had been stored by a major Dublin south city crime gang in a rented shed located at the rear of a block of five industrial units on the Clane road, at Longtown, Straffan, Co Kildare.
Armed officers from the organised crime unit raided the premises at 9.30am yesterday.
And they found the rockets -- one of which has been identified as a Russian-made RPG-22 -- an AK assault rifle and nine kilos of cocaine with a street value of between €700,000 and €800,000 hidden inside barrels.
The raid was part of Operation Lamp, which has been targeting members of a drug trafficking gang, based in the Crumlin area of Dublin.
Senior officers believe the gang had purchased the cocaine from one of the biggest suppliers to the Irish market -- a Crumlin-born criminal who fled to Spain more than two years ago as the gardai moved in on his operations.
The criminal, who is in his early 30s and has convictions here for assault and possession of a firearm with intent to rob, has been supplying shipments of drugs to his former associates in the south city since establishing himself in Spain.
It is the first time gardai have found rocket launchers in the possession of a criminal gang.
The seizure marks a significant upgrading of the type of weaponry now available to the drug traffickers. Some of the suspects have loose connections with one of the gangs involved in the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud.
Gardai were last night trying to establish if the shoulder-held rockets were to have been used against a rival outfit.
However, officers said it is also possible that the weapons -- which were notoriously difficult to fire on target when in the hands of terrorists during the troubles in Northern Ireland -- could have been used in a raid on a security vans carrying large amounts of cash and guarded by an Army escort.
Manufactured in the 1990s, the RPG-22 is said to be incapable of piercing a tank but could penetrate a cash in transit van or used as an assault weapon if attacking rival gangsters in a house.
Gardai believe both rocket-launchers were purchased by the drugs gang from either dissident republicans or as part of the cocaine consignment.
Shipments
They do not think they were part of the shipments of weaponry smuggled into the country by the Provisional IRA, prior to its ceasefire.
Three years ago a joint operation by gardai and the Serious Organised Crime Agency in Britain foiled an attempt to smuggle rocket launchers and other weapons into Ireland for the McCarthy-Dundon gang in Limerick.
The raid on the shed followed the seizure of another kilo of cocaine at the Naas Road, near Rathcoole, Co Dublin, on Thursday evening when the organised crime unit stopped two cars and detained four men.
The men, suspected of being members of the Crumlin gang, were being questioned last night at Clondalkin garda station under anti-drug trafficking legislation.
Follow-up searches in four houses resulted in the seizure of a kilo of cannabis and €16,000 in cash at a house in Glasnevin.
Two of the suspects are from Crumlin and one is alleged by gardai to be the "right hand man" here of the supplier in Spain.
The other two live in Glasnevin and Clonsilla and are suspected of being involved in the collection of a kilo of cocaine from other members of the gang.
The gang are believed to have moved their main storage depot to the shed outside Straffan because of increased garda patrols in the Crumlin area.
Gardai are also trying to establish if a Dublin criminal, now living outside Naas, was linked to the find.
- Tom Bray Security Editor
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